Courtship of the Stranger Kind
by Omnicurls
Summary: Gunther always asserted that he did not care whom he married, after all Marriage was just a contract between families. But now that it is time for him to pick a wife, feelings he believed he had under-control begin to surface.
1. Chapter 1

He was not sure he was hearing quite right. "I am what?" He asked his father, his brain refused to process the merchant's words.

"She is from a very wealthy family, and with this marriage we could almost double our trading routes. The nobility does it all the time; we merge houses and move up in the hierarchy." Gunther had never heard his father sound so satisfied with himself, and if he did not already know the cause for such glee, he would have been worried.

"I can't be engaged. I have never met her, or her family. Have you ever met them?" He tried to sound as respectful as possible, but his voice was teetering on the edge of irritation. Marriage was the last thing on his mind right now; he had knightly duties that needed his attention, attention that one woman was already successfully deviating.

"I met her father once, many years ago. But we sorted it out by letter," Magnus put his hands together and leaned forward, his tone sobered to match his suddenly serious demeanor, "Gunther, you are the heir to everything I own. Everything I do, I do for our lineage and for you. It is time you did something for us."

"Are you going to ship me to the continent?"

"Don't be silly, you can't just get up and leave; you are a knight of the kingdom. She will move here." Magnus leaned back and settled into his chair. Gunther could almost hear the poor chair groaning under the weight, "Asturias is not as kind to its merchants as Kippernium, and they have no particular ties to the kingdom. But you are a knight. That was a strong selling point, boy."

Gunther pressed his lips together tightly, "Right, a selling point." He repeated almost mechanically. The bitterness of having his ambition reduced to a simple political tool was almost palpable. He looked at his father and narrowed his eyes in irritation. More infuriating than Magnus' failure to tell him that he had been engaged, months ago, without him having the slightest idea, was his refusal to do so before his bride-to-be arrived. Did he think the less notice he gave Gunther, the less likely his son would be to fight against it? Gunther had never said 'no' to Magnus, so why his father found it necessary to continually blind-side was beyond him. But to be fair, Magnus' way of thinking was beyond anyone with a shred of humanity or dignity.

"Now go change into something more presentable; they should be arriving this afternoon and you want to make a good impression." Magnus said. He shifted again and the chair groaned, as though calling out for help. Gunther looked at the chair almost sympathetically; he had never thought the day would come when he would understand a piece of furniture, but today that chair was his brother in suffering.

Gunther sat on the edge of his bed and let out a deep sigh. All his spare time went into helping his father at the docks, and so when Magnus told him he did not need to go to the docks today, he was excited. "I should have known better." He said to himself as he reached under his shirt and gingerly touched the bruise on his left side. She had gotten him really, really good today. Somehow, he had left himself open and that ever vigilant frog-rider had hit him with the fury of the gods. How she could hit so hard was beyond him.

He lay down on his side and curled up, so what if he looked like a child? He was a knight of the kingdom and could do whatever he pleased. And right now, what he wanted to do was sleep. He'd meet her some other day when he was not so sore, tired and annoyed. He fumbled blindly for the covers, and when he found them he pulled them sharply over his head, sealing out the world and its problems. But that didn't work because in what had to be fewer than five minutes there was a sharp, impatient knocking on his door. "Gunther, they are almost here. Come down immediately!" Magnus' much, much less than welcome voice seemed to have no regard for the door that stood between Gunther and Magnus, because it simply boomed through the room as though he were standing inside, hovering over Gunther's bed like some immortal mosquito.

Gunther reluctantly sat up and pushed away the covers. If there was a day he had been more irritated than he currently was, he definitely could not remember it. He quickly changed his clothes and tied back his hair. He would go down, greet his future wife, and then leave her so she could go get some rest. If she travelled all the way from Asturias, she had to be deathly tired, which meant he could also catch up on some much needed sleep; free time was a rare luxury for him.

"E si ele é feio, o que devo fazer? Não quero as crianças feias." Gunther could hear her from the top of the stairs but he had no idea what she was saying. He spoke his fair share of languages, so would it have killed Magnus so sell him off to a family who spoke something he understood?

She was so engrossed in complaining to her father that she had not notice Gunther coming down the stairs. "Ja vi seu pai, ele será gordíssima."

"Elvira Petri" He said, bowing slightly.

She turned to face him and her words instantly died on her lips. Ethereal was the only way to describe her; she was so pale that every courtier between here and the continent must have been writhing with jealousy. Her thick dark hair was pulled back into an elaborate braid that hung over her shoulder, and was studded with so many gems that Gunther immediately understood why Magnus was so excited about this marriage. "Sir Breech." She said with a heavy accent as she curtsied. She looked up at him through her heavy dark lashes, her red-tinted lips turned up into an alluring smile. There was no denying she was beautiful; any man could see that from miles away, so Gunther could not help but wonder why the only thing he could think of was going back to sleep.

"Thank you for making such a long journey here, I hope it was not too taxing a trip." Magnus sounded like he was trying to make a deal, but trying just a bit too hard. If Gunther were a better man, he would have told Magnus flatly that his sycophantism was embarrassing.

"Not at all; we made frequent stops along the way. You can't travel such a distance with a woman and not expect frequent, lengthy stops." Laurencius Diaz was a mirror copy of Magnus, if a bit rounder and sleazier. Gunther shuddered; if this was the inevitable fate of merchants, he was glad his father forced him to become a knight instead.

"Gunther, show the lovely Elvira around the manor whilst her father and I speak." Magnus said, Gunther could almost see the greed dripping from Magnus' words. Wouldn't a trade link that went from the tip of the isles to Afrikiya be the perfect wedding gift for Magnus?

"You don't actually have to walk around right now; you must be far too tired for that." Gunther was genuinely thinking about her well-being, but when she shook her head vigorously at his suggestion, he suddenly found himself thinking about _his_ well-being.

"I am far from tired. I want to see everything; this is going to be my home and I should know it. But I want to start with the castle." She said, she sounded so happy that Gunther could not bring himself to be irritated anymore. "I want to meet the courtiers and noble. Oh, and I want to see were you work _Sir_ Breech."

"Of course." Gunther said as he offered his arm. When she spoke about the castle, her large, liquid brown eyes lit up, and it was so endearing that he could not even think about refusing. It was as though he were dealing with a six year old princess Lavinia all over again. "We can walk through the village, just so you get a sense of what Kippernium is like."

"Walk?" She said sharply. She planted her feet firmly on the ground and refused to take another step, "No. The sun is far too bright for me to walk; I will burn."

"What?" Gunther asked in disbelief. He stared at her, this was twice in one day he was being forced to accept something that was, to any sane person, utterly ridiculous. She looked back to him with those soft brown eyes, the only colour in her face aside the deliberate rouge on her cheeks and her thin, dark eyebrows. Of course, he thought to himself, she could not be from Asturias and be so pale unless she lived in the shade; that kingdom did not even have a real winter.

"One of your servants could carry a canopy over me." She shrugged, as though she had not just suggested the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. Even Magnus would not do such a thing. "Call me spoiled or whatever you would like, I know what I want and what I don't want, and I don't want to walk all the way to the castle in the sun."

"We will use a carriage." He patted her hand gently.

She looked at him through her heavy lashes and smiled that deliberately alluring smile, "You are too kind."

Gunther's automatic reaction was to nod tersely and focus on the task at hand, but he had to be charming; she had not travelled across the continent just to be dismissed by her future husband. He smiled and touched her hand gently, "Anything for you." She turned her hand upwards so his palm was resting in hers, and she wrapped her fingers around his hand and then she did not let go. Even when she was in the carriage and gawking at everything in sight, she still kept her fingers wrapped around his hand. Although Gunther found this a little more than irritating, in the name of chivalry he chose to bear it silently. Perhaps if he just ignored it, he would forget that this random woman from Asturias had laid claim to his hand and simply refused to give it back.

As they neared the castle, if quickly dawned on Gunther that she would want to socialise with the courtiers. And if she spoke to them, she would learn why everyone hated the Breech family, a fact he was beyond certain his father had neglected to mention to her family. "Elvira I must tell you something before we get to the castle," The seriousness of his tone caused her to immediately shift her attention to him, "My grand-father made his fortune during a war. He traded with the enemy, so my family name may not be the most highly esteemed."

"That's it?" She asked flatly, "You sounded like you were going to say all your family's ships sank."

"I am seen as a blood traitor." He said slowly, not quite understanding her dismissal of something so serious.

"So one of your ancestors did something bad, whose family tree is impeccable? My family has also done some things that I am not proud of, but I am not my family and you are not yours." Her words felt like the gentle, inconspicuous touch of a friend. The kind of gesture made by only those close enough to you to notice your discomfort and try to ease it. Her snobbishness and unapologetic expression of whatever she wanted to do were armour. Just like his derision and swagger were also armour. "People like us will be called names all our lives, made fun of behind our backs, for things we have no control over. It hurts, but it makes us steel. It also gives us the license to do as we please; what are they going to do? Mock us like they are already doing?" She was looking out the window as she spoke, as though these words he had been dying to hear were simply throwaways. Gunther was staring at her, silently trying to mull over her words, when she let out the highest pitched scream he had ever heard.

"Are you ok?" He asked, the carriage was just pulling up to the front of the castle. She shook her head forcefully.

"Um dragão! Um dragão! Ha um dragão!" She said frantically through heavy breaths.

"You have to say it in words I understand."

"A dragon!" At her words Gunther's concern instantly dissipated. He looked up just in time to see the overgrown lizard land inside the castle. Of course anyone who did not know that dragon was just another citizen of Kippernium would panic at the sight of a dragon casually flying overhead. He knew it was a perfectly rational reaction, but could not help but think that she was being a little bit too dramatic. Jane was less than twelve when she climbed up the side of a mountain to confront a dragon on her own, if a skinny twelve year old could do that, Elvira could calm down and step out of a carriage.

"It's fine. He is an ally of the kingdom." Gunther said as he stepped out of the carriage. He offered her his hand but Elvira shook her head and scurried to the other side of the carriage. "Trust me, I swear I will protect you if anything happens." Gunther said in the most patient, charming and polite tone he could, because he was about two minutes from walking back home and leaving her there. She could cower in the carriage until midnight for all he cared.

After nearly half an hour of patient coaxing, she finally gave in and cautiously stepped out of the carriage. However, her fear meant that this time she laid claim to his entire arm and refused to give it back. Latched on tightly like some overgrown leech, she followed a mildly annoyed Gunther into the castle. Whilst Gunther appreciated how much affection she wanted to show, he was not the affectionate type so her constant touching him instead of being endearing, simply forced him to learn to ignore her. And it worked. All those years of learning a knight's discipline actually helped him forget about her arms wrapped tightly around his till he found himself almost wondering why people kept stealing glances in his direction. And then she would leap at the slightly sound, wondering if it were the dragon, and Gunther would be reminded that he had a woman clutching to him for what looked like dear life.

But this time she hadn't leapt. Elvira had not really said anything to draw his attention to her presence, but he suddenly found himself fighting the urge to shake or off his arm and erase any trace of affection. It was as though her grip had gotten tighter and heavier because now Gunther was painfully aware of just how inappropriate her actions were. But pushing her away would be rude, so he bore her weight as he walked over towards Jane who had noticed him and raised a questioning eyebrow at Elvira's death-grip. His steps suddenly felt awkward and clumsy as he walked towards Jane who took a break from arranging the newly sharpened swords to smile at him. It looked innocent enough but he knew she was mocking him; he had known her long enough to learn that nothing she did was innocent, especially when it came it him. So why did her clearly mocking smile make his breath catch in his throat every single time.

"You look like more of a mess than usual." Somehow in his mind insulting her first lessened the humiliation of anything she would say about his current predicament, and created some sense of normalcy in which Elvira could wholly be ignored until she was not quite there anymore. Misunderstand what? He was not quite sure of that. He was engaged to his new found dead weight and the only way to misunderstand would be to assume they were already married.

"I'd say the same to you, but that'd be implying that there are days on which you look good." She replied sharply. Her bright green eyes travelled from Elvira to Gunther and back to Elvira. Elvira's arm suddenly felt like hot iron wrapped around him. Finally, Jane bowed slightly and introduced herself. Elvira raised a questioning eyebrow at Jane; she had a streak of soot across her left cheek and her hand were slightly darkened from helping Smithy. Elvira ran her hand lightly up Gunther's arm and he had to physically fight the urge to push her away,

"Darling," She drawled in her thick accent, "who is that?"

Gunther unconsciously shook her off him and moved away slightly, putting distance between them and stepping closer towards Jane. A gesture at which Elvira frowned.

"Jane is my partner. We were squires together as children, and now we are knights together."

"There are just somethings you can't get rid of no matter how hard you try." Jane added. Again, with those sharp words and that mocking smile. Why couldn't he have thought to say that?

"She is a woman," Elvira said, her voice thick with derision, "or at least I think that is what she is supposed to be. Has anyone told her that? Does her family know she walks carries on like this?"

Gunther stared at her, lost for words. He was trying to understand what could have prompted her to act like that. "Excuse me? I am a fine woman and a finer knight for it." Jane replied. Her voice was calm and even, and Gunther knew that when her voice was this even, Jane was fighting to hold on to the last shreds of her civility.

"A finer night _walker_ , you mean? I don't know what other kind of woman would travel alone around with a man she is not married to." Elvira, her voice cold and even, was working very hard to explain that Gunther was now hers and hers alone. She was not an idiot; she had felt Gunther tense under there touch the moment he saw Jane, and the way he had shaken her off was insulting to say the least.

Jane began to retort but before she could finish her first word Gunther cut in, his tone even more dangerously cold than Elvira's, "Jane is a finer woman than you could ever hope to be. If you wish to embarrass me by insulting someone, do not try your betters. Whilst I am being honest, the only person here who looks like a nightwalker is you, although I am not sure if you are pretty enough to be one."

Gunther could feel her staring at him, seething with rage, but he looked straight ahead refusing to grace her with so much as his attention. Furious, Elvira spun round and stormed off. He was not sure what exactly she was saying, but he did not need to understand Portuguese to know that she was insulting him.

"Who is she?" Jane asked, reeling from how awful that brief interaction had been.

"According to my father I am supposed to marry her." He should not have been so cold to Elvira and he knew it, because once they returned to the manor she would probably run sobbing to their fathers, and Magnus would be beyond furious, and he would have to deal with it all. But even if he could go back a few minutes, he would it would do it all over again. Word for word. Perhaps worse.

Ever since their first real mission together, when he saw how cruel the world could be to a female knight, he had been strangely protective of Jane to a degree that sometimes made him, himself, uncomfortable. He was even more protective of her honour; the first fight he had ever gotten into off the battlefield had been because some idiot thought it would be funny to grab Jane and proposition her in front of all the other knights. She would have put him in his place. But Gunther was faster than she was; before she could deliver one of her sharp, biting insults Gunther had one had on the knight's arm that was holding onto her, and other right between his eyes. The knight staggered backwards and Gunther hit him again, this time knocking him to the ground. Glaring at the fallen knight, he knew Jane would be furious with him because he had robbed her of the chance to prove that she could stand on her own two feet. But he didn't do it because he thought her weak; he was the last person who would ever make the mistake of underestimating her. He did it to let all those present know that anyone who touched her would have to fight two people. Or at least that was what he told himself his motivation was, because he forcibly buried that anger he felt seething in his chest at the sight of another man laying a hand on her.

"You probably should go after her." Jane said almost dismissively. Her suggestion smacked him like an insult, not they kind they shared because they had been doing so for years, but a genuine and cold insult. Not unlike the one he had just so kindly given his wife to be.

"I don't want to" Gunther replied. He fixed his eyes on the smudge of soot on her cheek, but decided to leave it there.

"Are you going to marry her?" Jane was being reasonable and he did not like it. He just wanted to arrange the swords with her and pretend that Elvira had never left Asturias.

"I guess so." He shrugged. Jane just looked at him, her unamused gaze made him acutely aware of just how childish he was acting. He had responsibilities, and they both knew it.

" _This_ is why nobody likes you, Jane." Gunther said, surrendering to her more mature reasoning. Even as he left her, he could not help but think how much easier it was to be around her than anyone else. Gunther had only one thing of importance in his life, his knighthood. That was all that ever mattered to him, but once in a while when it was just Jane and him training, sitting and laughing together by a camp fire, or even just looking for an inn to rest along one of their journeys, silent from hours of travel, there was a close second.

When he reached the castle gates he realised Elvira had already left; he could not find her anywhere and the carriage was gone. Were he a better man, he might have felt bad because his words were harsh enough to make her run off. But Gunther was polite, not necessarily nice. He let out a short laugh under his breath before turning and heading back into the castle, perhaps there was still time to help Jane arrange the swords.


	2. Chapter 2

The question was not what happened, but what happened to him. Gunther, for as long as he could remember, had not liked Jane at all. In fact, he could barely stand her. She was proud, talkative, and far too holier than though. For him, who sometimes wanted to veer a little off course and make the most of their trips into other towns, she was an annoying weight on his journey to becoming a knight. But somewhere along the way, something changed and she became his friend, but more than that, she became a confidant, a person he could tell anything.

Perhaps it was because he had never quite cared what she thought of him that he was able to so easily let her see everything. And then on some god forsaken night on one of their missions to another town, he had looked at her tying her horse to a tree and maybe it was the way the dying sunlight hit her, or perhaps the playful sneer she gave him when she caught him staring, but realised that over the years he had fallen in love with her and now it was too late to do anything about it.

Tonight, outside her room, he could not help but think about their childhood and how much they used to fight each other every chance they got. Perhaps that was actually why he felt comfortable to visit her room at mid-night, when the whole castle was sleeping, to tell her things that showed that Gunther Breech was not the swaggering champion he pretended to be. Before he could throw another stone, the window opened sharply. Funny enough, she looked much more like a lady when she was sleeping than she did during the day. Her wild, red hair had been tamed into a heavy braid and her white night-dress gave her an uncharacteristic air of innocence. An innocence that was going to kill him for waking her up in the dead of the night.

"Are you mad?" She demanded. She was very clearly irritated and sleepy, but Gunther could not bring himself to care. As though he were the Lord over her right to sleep, he pointed towards the spiral staircase embedded in the tower and disappeared from her line of view without even waiting for an answer. Jane insulted him under her breath and left to put on something more appropriate for meeting a man, alone, in the middle of the night. Whatever that could be.

"What on earth made you think that this was acceptable?" She stormed down the stairs. Gunther Breech could be such a pain in her existence

"You are a female knight; since when did you become concerned with what is 'acceptable'?" Gunther asked as he sat on one of the stairs.

"Before I hurt you," Jane said as she sat down beside him, "Why are you here?"

"I don't care whom I marry." Gunther's voice shifted quickly to a sincere seriousness that Jane immediately knew that all jokes were off that the table. "For me, marriage is something I have to do, but means nothing really. The only thing that matters to me, Jane," He was staring her straight in the eyes and did not even realise it, "the only thing worth anything in my life is my knighthood. So why is it so hard to find someone who does not annoy me so much? I am not asking for much. This new one my father found, I can't stand her. She is too meek, too skittish. Like a mouse. She never tells me what she wants, she always agrees with me even when I can see that she disagrees. If I have to spend the rest of my life with someone, is it too much to ask that whomever it is can speak, laugh, at least be a normal person? All I am asking for is an opinion and a bit of personality."

"I think you mean to say she is demure. That is how women are raised. Being demure, bashful and soft-spoken are virtues. You are supposed to want demure."

"But I don't want demure and all that crap. It is boring. You know she is angry with me? But when I ask why, she acts as though nothing is wrong. She apologises for everything, whether there is a reason to apologise or not. Why can't she just stand some ground?" Gunther was complaining like a child, but he did not care. It was Jane; she did not care if he acted like a child or an old-man.

"You know you are full of shit." She said in a manner than was simultaneously teasing and critical. A manner only Jane could pull off. "You care whom you marry. More than that, you are extremely picky. About Elvira you said-"

"She was crazy. You yourself know that. You saw how she spoke to you."

"Well, I was upset, but on another hand I understand her." Her voice was suddenly soft. She looked down at her hands and his eyes instinctively followed her gaze. "She was insecure and jealous. The man she was supposed to marry works very closely with another woman, a woman he travels all over the kingdom with, alone. For a woman like here who is not 'meek like a mouse', she had to express her anger."

"But you are far from modest and you would never think of acting the way she did. Afterwards, when I returned home, you should have seen her. She was yelling at me, furious, demanding that I tell her you are ugly. Which you are, but that is a different issue." Jane punched him in the shoulder and he laughed. "She said either I ask for a new partner of the marriage was off. That was an easy choice."

"Ok, maybe she was a little crazy. But that is personality if I have ever seen it." Jane laughed. She was laughing at his misfortune with brides-to-be. She thought it was funny. And perhaps in some strange, twisted way it was. He was telling the only woman he could ever see himself with that he did not care whom he married.

"A bit?" Gunther repeated. The only light was from a torch on the wall a few steps above them. Its orange glow gave Jane that same dusky glow she had every time they were sitting around a camp fire, alone and telling each other things they would never dream to reveal to anyone else. When you had seen things together that made you cry into each other's arms, there were walls that simply had no place between you.

There were also _those_ thoughts. Thoughts he fought with every fibre of his being, because he respected Jane far too much to indulge in.

Jane nudged him playfully with her shoulder, forcing him to graze the wall of the tiny staircase. "I hope you know that I am not like other women. I was raised to be a knight, so you cannot use me as an example."

"I would never use you as an example of what I want. I am looking to get married, not cursed." Gunther said without missing a beat. Jane too, without missing a beat, smacked him upside the head and he laughed again. His interactions with her were always bitter sweet because, on one hand, they reminded him that whatever he had fallen into with Jane he could never in a million years climb out of. But on the other hand, there was that ever present voice in the back of his mind reminding him that she was, as much as she pretended not to be, a lady from a well-respected family. He was the commoner son of a despised merchant. He could dream from dawn till dusk about her, but the truth would always remain the same; she was off-limits to him.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence before Jane broke it.

"What?" Jane asked self-consciously. Gunther had not noticed but the whole night his eyes had been fixed on her, "Yes, I look like this when someone drags me out of bed at mid-night just to whine like some overgrown child." Her voice was playful and defensive, a combination Gunther could not help but bait because he knew he was getting to her, but he also knew that she did not mind.

"I was just surprised; you are the only person I know who actually looks better having just rolled out of bed." It was supposed to be an insult, but it didn't come out right and his words would have hung awkwardly in the air between them, but there was no such thing as awkward between them. Not after years of seeing each other at their best and at their worst.

"It is because during the day I actually have to deal with you. But at night I can dream you don't exist." Jane shot back. It would always be a war between them. If one was not trying to best the other, then it was not them.

"Face it, you dream about me every night. It's ok, I'd dream about me too if I were a woman." He had come annoyed and tense, and somehow within less than an hour he was happy again. Of course, there was still an issue of his mute fiancée, but that seemed like a distant problem. Right now he could pretend that he and Jane in the stairwell were all that mattered.

"Why do I put up with you? You have a boundless ego and do stupid things like sneak to my room in the middle of the night. Do you know how much trouble we could get into?" Gunther felt his whole body flush at her words. He had not snuck _into_ her room; He had snuck _to_ her room. If he had snuck into her room, they would have been having a very different conversation. Perhaps one with fewer words.

Gunther stood up and stretched slightly before offering his hand to Jane to help her up, "Now where is your sense of adventure?" He teased. She glared at him. Her eyes looked almost gold under the red-orange light.

She placed her hand in his and sighed heavily, making sure he was aware that she disapproved of his actions. "You can be so extraordinarily careless."

"You are one to talk, how many times have I had to save you because you rushed into something careless?" He pulled her up with more force than he needed to. He thought she would resist by pulling back to sharply, and so she was stumble backwards but instead she fell forward against him and he had to catch her.

She looked up at him. He could not help but laugh at just how annoyed she looked. "There is something wrong with you." She said, hoping if she glared at him enough he would stop laughing and apologise.

He let go of her hand and poked her lightly on the forehead, "You literally fell for that." He was still grinning; pleased with just how many of her buttons he had managed to push. She brushed his hand away from her face. Once his hand was out of the way Gunther found himself staring directly into her gold tinged eyes and instead of irritation, there was a vague uncertainty he could not place. As though she were waiting for something. He suddenly became aware of the fact that neither of them had moved; she was still leaning against him just as she had stumbled into him, and the arm which had used to try to steady her, still hung loosely around her waist.

A smarter person would have quickly let go and let the whole situation pass, because there was no such thing as awkwardness between them. But instead, he chose to do something extraordinarily careless.

* * *

Gunther pushed open the front door and let it shut loudly behind him. It was well past midnight, but Magnus had never cared where his son went. Gunther sank into one of the chairs and buried his face in his hands. If anyone could explain what had just happened, he would sign over his entire inheritance. He was shaking. Whether from fear of excitement, he had no clue. Perhaps he had dreamed it up; it was very possible that he had just stared at her and imagined kissing her, but it never actually happened. "Jane Turnkey, really?" He unconsciously said out loud.

"Is that whom you were with?" A soft voice asked from behind him. Gunther quickly sat up straight and looked back. She was standing in the doorway with that perpetually wounded look on her face as though the world had wronged her oh so fragile soul. And for the first time Gunther felt that look was appropriate. He could have lied to her, but he did not really want to. Not because she was supposedly his fiancée, but because he just could not be bothered to. His mind was far too preoccupied for him to put on a show of concern,

"Yes." He said bluntly, not even trying to hide his nonchalance. She turned and began to walk away when Gunther spoke, "Mary, come sit down for a minute."

Without a word she walked towards him and sat down. One day she would make some overbearing man very, very happy. "Are you not upset? Your family brought you here with the hopes that we would get married, and within less than a week I leave in the middle of the night to meet another woman."

"You have the right to do as you want." There she was again, being the peace-maker, the soft, docile, pleasant woman he could not help but feel almost sorry for. "I can't tell you how to live your life. I accepted my family's plan to unite our families, and someday our trading routes and ships, so I will accept you as you are."

She made a lot of sense, but sense for a life Gunther was not ready to live. He thought he had made peace with his inevitable marriage to some woman of his father's choice, but he was not quite sure anymore. All he could think about was that uncertain, expectant look in Jane's eyes, and the way her fingers caressed the nape of his neck. He had never, in all his dreams, expected that. He thought she would react with a slap, some indignation, perhaps a bit of yelling, but never requited urgency and passion. He instinctively reached up and touched the very spot her fingers had grazed. His whole body flushed at the memory.

He looked up at Mary. Her eyes were green like Jane's, but not quite green enough. Or maybe they were too green. There was just something important that was not there. "This won't work for either of us, I will make you miserable and you will make me miserable. I will take the blame for it, but we are telling our families that this marriage will not happen."

He did not wait for an answer; he simply stood up and left for his room. He ran his hand through his hair and let out a deep sigh. No matter how much he tried that moment kept creeping back into his mind, replaying over and over how warm her lips felt against his, how the brush of her fingers against his neck and her hand moving up his shoulders sent shivers down his spine. It could not be normal for someone to have such an effect on another person. Gunther crawled into his bed and pulled the covers over himself. Every time he closed his eyes all he saw was himself reaching down to meet her lips and her hands reaching up to his shoulders. It felt as though he would never be able to think of anything else.

So why couldn't he mention that it happened. It had been over a week since he stood outside her window throwing stones to get her attention. Over a week since he enraged his father by rejecting yet another possible wife, over a week and he could still not stop thinking about every moment of that night. And yet he could not bring himself to even act like it happened. And of course she was not going to say anything either. So they quietly returned to their routine of mocking and insulting each other as though nothing had changed. But something had, and they both knew it.

"If I didn't know better I would think you were blind." He sneered. She was not that far off the bullseyes, but she had not hit it either and that was enough for him to make fun of her. He held up his own bow and effortlessly hit the bullseye.

Jane spun round to face him, her arrow pointed straight at his chest, "If you do not shut-up, Gunther, I will use you as target practice."

"I'd be more scared if you knew your way around half a bow." He said dryly, "You know, I feel sorry for you-"

"I don't think about you at all." She cut in. That one actually stung a little bit, because for the past week he could not help but think about her. He had this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that perhaps this time her words were sincere and she was acting like that night on the staircase never happened, because she had truly put it out of her mind.

He fell silent and Jane resumed practicing with the target, happy that she had finally managed to shut him up for once. She did not expect the silence to last, but it did. And it bothered her. Gunther was never quiet for long; there was always something she was doing that he could make fun of her for. Gunther did not notice how long he had been silent for, just watching her shoot arrow after arrow. In his mind it must have been just a minute or two, but in reality it was much longer than that. He was contemplating asking her, finally working up the courage he should have had a week ago, and just ask if she really meant to kiss him back.

Jane lowered her bow and looked at him, her emerald eyes boring straight through him, "What is wrong with you?" She asked, as though she did not know.

"Just wondering if Magnus will truly disown me this time; I turned down Mary." He lied. That had not even been remotely on his mind, but it was a suitable lie.

"The quiet one?"

"Yes. I am never going to find someone I like, and I am fine with that."

"So you finally admit you do care who you marry," Jane said triumphantly, "Everyone cares who they marry. Even I do, at this point my parents have just given up. My mother keeps sighing that I will run through all the suitors in the world."

"You have suitors?" Gunther asked incredulously. He had never heard of any of Jane's suitors, nor had he seen her with anyone except that love struck fool that followed her around like some lost puppy.

"You didn't know? Everyone in the castle knows. I tried to keep it a secret, but there is no such thing as a secret when you live in the castle. Everyone thinks it's funny, the parade of princes who just come and go." Her voice rose with every word.

"You have princes who want to marry you?" There was this vague sense of panic descending over him, a panic that made him so sick he felt as though he would throw-up. Left to him, they would never have left that staircase. But nothing was left to him, because her parents would have laughed his proposition out of the castle even before there were princes lining up for her. He could feel his heart racing and his hands shaking, as though his body wanted to stop whatever was terrifying him so much, but it could not because there was no enemy to fight.

"I have princes who want the loyalty of a dragon. It's one thing to be allied with Kippernium, but another to have me marry into a kingdom's royal family. They think that would bind dragon to them, but what they all fail to understand is that he is my friend not some weapon. They can come from now to the end of time, but I am not leaving Kippernium, and the king wants me to stay so no not even my parents can force me to marry anyone." Just talking about the situation mad her visibly upset, a fact Gunther should have felt guilty taking solace in, but he was finding too much comfort in knowing that she did wanted her suitors as much as he did not want the wives Magnus found for him.

"I don't live in the castle, Jane. Anything I hear, I hear from you because you are the only one I spend much time with." He said, still mulling over the slightly unsettling news that Jane had suitors of which he had had no idea.

"Oh right, I keep forgetting that nobody likes you." She smirked, her anger slowly dissipating.

"Hey, at least people actually want to marry me, not my dragon."

"They want to marry your trade routes and ships." Jane pointed out quickly, "although I do not know how many ships your father must have to make up for your awful personality."

He walked up to her wordlessly. Suspicious, Jane wanted to take a step back but she was not about to let him win, so she stood her ground. "I pray some kind prince comes and takes you off my hands." Gunther said as he reached behind her and flipped her hair over the front of her face. Her hair, damp from sweat, clung to her face, and no matter how much she tried to brush the matted locks away they clung to her face and found their way into her mouth. Whilst she was distracted he grabbed her bow out of her hand.

"You are such a nuisance." She yelled as she chased him. But he was off, laughing as she tried to brush her hair out of her eyes and catch-up with him at the same time.


	3. Chapter 3

"You are a waste of a son. After all I have done for you, all I have invested in you, you pay our family back by throwing out opportunity after opportunity." Gunther did not normally care about Magnus' tantrums, but that was exactly the problem; Magnus was not upset. Gunther felt the urge to run out of the room because whatever Magnus had to say could not be good news for him. "Fortunately, you seem to have learned something from me, because there is girl from a very good family who insists on marrying you."

Gunther stared blankly at his father, "What?" It was just like the first time his father had brought up marriage, except this time he was certain he had misheard Magnus.

"You know Lord Belfield, the one with the very profitable farmlands to the east of the Kingdom, he has one child and she forced her parents into suggesting a marriage between our families. You have some of me in you after all." Magnus looked so disgustingly smug that Gunther had to repress a shudder; for the most part he tried to forget he was related to Magnus by blood.

"How could someone convince a man like Lord Belfield to marry his daughter to a title-less family, more over a family with a reputation such as ours?" Gunther asked, not quite believing his father. The Belfields were very proud and Lord Belfield had a sizeable enough estate to marry his daughter into a higher title. There was absolutely no way under the sun he would allow his daughter take the Breech name.

Magnus frowned. Gunther had always been too blunt and flippant about their family's standing for his liking. "She went on a hunger-strike, for us. She did not eat a thing for five days, for us. You have ruined two possibly great alliances now, if you ruin this one I will disown you."

Gunther was looking at his father but not quite seeing him. All he could see was Jane doing absolutely mundane things like training, walking across the court yard, even shooting him a look of mock irritation. Things she did every day that made him want to pull her towards him and kiss her again. "I will have to think about it." Gunther said as he rose from his seat. Magnus shot to his feet, his chair almost fell over.

"What do you mean 'think about it'? There is nothing to think about boy." Magnus yelled. His voice seemed to fill the entire room, and whilst that might have scared Gunther when he was twelve, now it only annoyed him. "An offer like this does not wait for you to 'think about it'."

Gunther had never said 'no' to Magnus because he had never really had a reason to. From a young age he had learned to not care about many things, and once Magnus realised how involving Gunther in his 'plans' jeopardised his son's knighthood, he had stopped involving him in the more reckless plans. So for the most part Gunther just went along with what Magnus asked, and when things went wrong he shouldered the blame. But this was his entire future; he was not going to bind himself to someone just because Magnus asked. "You never asked what I wanted. I have to live with her, so of course I have to think about it."

Magnus slammed his fist on the table. Were it a few years ago, he would have hit his son. But Gunther had grown and Magnus was wise enough to know that their difference in strength was better left unmentioned. "Do you dare disobey me?"

Gunther looked at his father with the same condescending, bored look he gave everyone around him, "Go ahead, disown your only child. Perhaps when you die everything you own can be a gift to the kingdom." He turned and walked out of the room, ignoring the insults his father was hurling at him. Gunther had become quite used to hearing insults behind his back, not least in part thanks to his father's awful reputation.

…..

Insults to his face, on the other hand, came from only one person and right now her insult of choice was 'useless'. "Don't you have any stamina?" She asked, "Heavens you are useless."

Gunther collapsed onto the ground and wrapped his hands around his knees, "Are you trying to kill yourself, Jane? We are done sparring for today." He was breathing heavily so his words came out in short, exhausted bursts.

She too was exhausted. He could tell from how far her chest rose and fell that she was also trying to catch her breath. She brushed one of the sweat-matted locks of hair off her forehead and tilted her head back. Gunther watched as she tipped the waterskin towards her lips and drank deeply. He felt his throat tighten. He was going to ask about the kiss in the stairwell. It was long overdue and if she felt about him the way she kissed him, then perhaps his chances were not so hopeless after all. He just had to find the courage to bring it up.

"I am thirsty." He reached up towards the waterskin, and although it was far out of his reach because he was sitting and she was standing, Jane nonetheless jerked it over her shoulder and farther away from him. She locked eyes with him and he felt something stir deep in his stomach, his ears began to burn and his throat closed even further.

"Don't you have your own? I am pretty sure your arrogance his contagious and I would hate to catch it."

Gunther furrowed his brows slightly and looked down sharply. He had not felt this way since the first, stomach clenching moment he realized that he had fallen for Jane Turnkey. That was years ago, when he thought it was just a childish crush. Today he would have given his left arm for it to be just a crush. He thought she was done having this effect on him.

"Is everything alright?" She asked. There was a split-second of concern in her voice, but it disappeared so quickly that Gunther believed he must have imagined it, "If you are that tired we can call it a day. Just accept that I won."

Gunther reached deep and pushed away the fluttering in his stomach. He stood up and squared his shoulders, "And how on earth would I lose to someone as awful at sparring as you?" He poked her shoulder lightly. Green eyes travelled from his finger to his eyes and Gunther felt the nervous fluttering, burning ears, and closed throat all rush back without warning.

She shoved the waterskin into his chest, "Fine, then one more match it is."

Gunther wrapped his fingers tightly around the waterskin and watched, helplessly overcome by his racing heart, as she walked towards the center of the training ground where they had dropped their swords. She did not walk like a knight; her hips swayed far to femininely and he cursed himself for being too weak to look away. She spun around and smirked, "Are you going to stand there grinning like an idiot or are we going to fight?"

He had not even realized he was smiling, but now that she had mentioned it he was suddenly aware that his face felt tired from grinning to hard. "Calling it a fight implies you have a chance of winning."

"We are tied right now, remember?"

"I was being generous; I did not want to humiliate you."

"Right, because you understand the concept of generosity."

Gunther did not say anything as Jane, walking backwards, walked into a brown haired man. He did not say anything because he thought it would be funny to see the embarrassment on her face. What he did not find funny was the familiar way in which the man placed his hand on her shoulder to her stable her. His grip on the waterskin tightened as the man took Jane's hand briefly, and she did not object. He quickly drank the rest of the water and walked over towards Jane. He had his shoulders back, chest out and lips turned up into a condescending smirk. "I thought you had a match to lose, Jane, or are you just stalling?" His words were sharp and confident.

He deliberately ignored the other man, who, annoyed by Gunther's oversight, refused to acknowledge Gunther either. "Because I was not the one waiting for you, beef brain." Jane shot back. She bowed slightly at the man who briefly took her hand again before she turned her attention back to Gunther. He waited till the man was out of earshot before asking the question that had been burning in his mind.

"Who is he?" Jane tapped her calf lightly with her practice sword as she spoke, she was nervous and Gunther could see it. "He is a nice middle ground. He has an older sister so he is not heir to their throne, and he agreed to split his time between his kingdom and ours. So I get to stay, well most of the time. The king agrees it's a good bargain and I am just tired of all this." She could not meet Gunther's eyes no matter how hard she tried, and he was looking at her, hoping she would look up and give him the courage to say what he had to say. But she did not.

"Well at least you have your life on track. We should get back to training; the sooner I am done wounding your pride, the sooner I can get home." He said; it was his turn to sound dismissive about a suitor.

He could not tell whether he was angry or afraid, but as his sword met hers he found himself striking much harder and violently than he should have whilst at the same time convincing himself that it was obviously best to leave whatever had happened in the stairwell, in the stairwell.

Jane stumbled back and dropped her sword sharply, "What is wrong with you? We are simply practicing technique." She snapped, she was as angry as he was, if not more so. And her anger, like his, was entirely unexpected.

"Me? You are the one who can't keep it together." His words were bitter and accusatory, "Some man walks in, you decide to marry him because your parents say so, and you forget how to even hold your own in a simply spar."

"Are you crazy? You are the one who shows up every day with a different bride to be as though you have no standards and just pick them off the street." Their words were white-hot, and neither cared if it burned.

Gunther pressed his tongue against the back of his top teeth and gave her an acid smile, "I am sorry I don't have 'possessing a kingdom' as one of my requirement. We can't all go chasing crowns and land. You are just like any other courtier; I bet they would love to take a lesson from your book."

Gunther had always been great at hurting people with his words. He had a way of digging deep inside people and finding that one thing that would make his words sting like the acid in his smile. Jane knew she was not half as good, because she had never had to hurt people back. But she was not one to back down either.

Gunther looked down at the practice sword pressed against the base of his throat. His eyes travelled along the sword and up to meet her eyes, "My life is none of your business. Whom I choose to marry, or do not, has absolutely nothing to do with you, and you would do well to remember that."

Gunther felt his heart drop into his stomach. He had not meant to hurt her, but he had seen it – if only for a brief second – that he had crossed a line. He pushed the sword away and nodded slowly, "You right. I am sorry. Your life has nothing, at all, to do with me." And just like that he turned and walked away. He won, she won. None of it mattered.

He wanted look back and say something, anything. She wanted to call out to him, or stop him because this time they had fought for real, and it had been years since they had last truly fought. But neither could; it seemed easier to leave the things that could not be said, unsaid.

All the way home Gunther replayed the argument in his head over and over again, hoping to find something that made that catastrophic degradation of their training session worth it. But there was nothing; it simply a confirmation that sometimes in the middle of the night people did stupid things they did not mean. He could not base his life decisions on stupid, spur of the moment actions no matter how much he wanted them to mean more.

By the time he get home, he once again did not care whom he married. This was convenient for Magnus who had, against his son's wishes, arranged for the Belfields to visit. Gunther enter the house to find a rather pretty dark haired girl sitting on a chair with her hands in her lap, and a not too pleased man with a long face glaring at him.

"Ah, here he is. Sorry for the wait, sometimes things come up at the last minute in the castle for a knight." Magnus said as he rose to his feet and motioned to a confused Gunther, "This is Elizabeth Belfield, the lovely young woman I was telling you about."

She rose to her feet and curtsied. She was trying desperately to hold back her smile, but she just could not. Why couldn't Jane smile like that around him? "It is a pleasure to finally meet you in person Sir Breech."

Gunther stepped forward, bowed and as he straightened his stance his eyes met hers. Jane's life had nothing to do with him, and his had nothing to do with her. If he had to marry someone, so far Jessica Belfield looked like a decent enough choice. And her father hated Magnus, which was a bonus in itself.


End file.
